{
  "id": 15864444,
  "title": "A family business new deal for the Fourth Industrial Revolution",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/21/a-family-business-new-deal-for-the-fourth-industrial-revolution",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-10-21T06:45:17.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Emerging Europe",
    "slug": "emerging-europe",
    "url": "https://emerging-europe.com/a-family-business-new-deal-for-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The next decade holds a significant test, not only for the wealth of entrepreneurial families but also for their ability to reinvent themselves and maintain the human essence of their companies amid the changing landscape of machines and technology. For fourteen centuries, the Japanese family of Kongō Gumi, established in Osaka in 578, managed to stay under family control for approximately forty generations, outlasting numerous historical events. However, it ultimately failed to survive the property bubble, becoming absorbed by a larger construction group in 2006. This story serves as a reminder that family businesses, while capable of lasting longer than empires, can also lose their foundations within a single generation.\n\nThroughout history, each industrial revolution has ushered in new fortunes while undermining old ones, as seen with the advent of steam, electricity, the assembly line, and the microchip. The Fourth Industrial Revolution promises to do the same, albeit at a much faster pace. Artificial intelligence is transitioning from a helpful tool for people to a decision-making system itself, while robotics is altering the economics of manufacturing, biotechnology is opening up new health and longevity markets, and digital platforms are reducing margins in traditional industries. Furthermore, geopolitics has started to intrude into boardrooms, with supply chains, energy, and investments becoming matters of national security. This presents entrepreneurial families with a dual economic and generational challenge, as well as the responsibility of preserving the values that have brought them success.\n\nThe core issue revolves around preparing a business for a rapidly transforming world and maintaining the human connections that family firms have always relied on. Simply implementing another digital transformation program or succession plan will not suffice. Instead, families need to engage in a new kind of \"Family Business New Deal\" for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which involves redefining their relationship with their companies, successors, employees, and society at large. This new approach should encompass patient capital, technological change, and human responsibility, as well as fostering a long-term perspective and the ability to reinvent rather than merely guard wealth.",
  "summary": "The next decade will test more than the wealth of entrepreneurial families. It will test whether they can reinvent what they built, raise successors capable of judgement, and keep the human core of their companies intact while machines take on more of the thinking. For fourteen centuries, one Japanese family built temples. Kongō Gumi was […] A family business new deal for the Fourth Industrial…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}